


Paper Faces on Parade

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:44:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Masquerades are dangerous things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Faces on Parade

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Phantom of the Opera, Masquerade. Quotes in the text (italicized) from Romans 5:3-4. My first time playing in this fandom - feedback more than welcome!

_We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance..._  
  
James Hathaway can curse fluently in five languages; at the moment, he's restraining himself to English. Curses on the soul of the unfortunate who bloody invented the bloody masquerade ball – curses on the unfortunate who proposed a fundraiser to the Oxford CID – curses on the romantic sod who proposed that said fundraiser should be a masquerade.  
  
Curses on first Innocent, and then Lewis, for insisting on his presence here.  
  
Curses on the law-abiding citizens of Oxford, who had failed to manufacture a crisis that required his presence elsewhere, instantly. James Hathaway frowned, and began to explore the limits of German invective – surely, it was merited.  
  
His phone failed to ring. His e-mail inbox was empty. There was no crisis on the horizon. With a deep sigh, James lifted the mask to his face and adjusted the string until it was held there tightly.  
  
 _and endurance produces character..._  
  
"You need to stop thinking so much," Lewis had said to him, sometime after the third dance.  
  
James had identified him – had identified his three dance partners, Innocent, all of his colleagues. He had no doubt at all when it was his governor speaking to him, Robbie whose breath was warm against his ear – and that was what he was meant to shut off. _Stop thinking so much._  
  
He was not meant to know that it was Robbie – that was the point of a masquerade.  
  
"Yes, sir," he said. He felt his fingers close on empty air – fingers that might have held a pint glass, a tumbler of whiskey, a cigarette. Without his props, he felt naked and empty and dull.  
  
Clothes make the man, as Mark Twain says. James concentrated on his tuxedo, on the long elegant lines of his clothes, on the stiff shape of his collar, on all of the things that he was taught at Cambridge, on all of the things that mattered.  
  
 _and character produces hope_  
  
James was wearing a mask; he was not himself. For one night in the year, he did not have to be himself.  
  
His heart thudding so hard he could hear it, James reached out to Lewis, offered him a hand. He gave himself a moment to appreciate the lines of Robbie’s body, elegant in his tuxedo, and the warm, familiar lines of his face.  
  
The music began to play again. Hand outstretched, he asked, "May I have this dance?"


End file.
